Anatomy of a Murder

by Robert Traver

  Time was fleeting and I rushed on. “No, the Lieutenant didn’t send a sleepy unarmed old man, but went himself and did so legally, as I believe the Judge will so instruct you.” (This was the instruct-tion Parnell had toiled over so long.) “Surely, people, this Barney was either a dangerous maniac at large or at least a dangerous criminal. In either case he was a man who had just committed, in aggravated form, one of the gravest felonies on our books. I believe the Lieutenant had every right to go there and grab that man. I believe the Judge will tell you so. Because the taunting sight of his wife’s tormentor may have unhinged the Lieutenant’s reason, you are now asked to ruin his life.”

  I looked at the clock and stepped forward. One of the constant and worrisome defense problems in any criminal case—since it has but one chance at the jury argument while the prosecution has two—is not only to cover its own case in the allotted time, but to try as well to anticipate and cover the possible arguments the prosecution might advance in its still unheard and forever unanswerable closing argument. About all that Mitch had given me to fulminate about in his routine opener was the business about Barney and the gate. Claude Dancer had graciously tossed Mitch that solitary forensic bone, thoughtfully saving the rest for himself. I moved quickly on to that.

  “Our prosecutor has pointed out in his opening argument that if the deceased had intended any harm to Mrs. Manion he would not have bothered to drive her to the park gate in the first place,” I said. “The implication of that argument is, of course, that some mysterious thing happened between the bar and the gate that led Barney to believe his romantic advances would not be unwelcome, that Love and Four Roses finally conquered all. Now that argument has a certain glib plausibility, a surface persuasiveness, but I wonder if it will stand analysis? I wonder, people, whether this is not the true reason why Barney Quill drove her first to the gate: He knew the gate was locked. He had already formed his design to have at this woman. He already knew that she was reluctant and nervous about riding with him. By first driving her to the gate, which he well knew was locked, he could thus allay her suspicions and hide his real intentions. If on the contrary he had simply driven past the gate road without turning in—a point which the chart shows is still right in town—she would immediately have become suspicious and could have raised an effective hue and cry while still in town. His plan worked; when he made his final turn off on the “rape” road, far down the main road, it was too late, any screams then would have been futile, she was finally in his power.” I paused. “Is that not more probably the real reason why he drove her in to the gate at all?”

  My favorite juror was all but nodding his head at me. Embarrassed, I looked at the woman next to him, a plump, pop-eyed, folded-armed, middle-aged lady who, doubtless through some wry trick of the thyroid, had sat wide-eyed during the entire trial, watching or rather beholding the proceedings, a look of perpetual astonishment stamped on her face. She stared at me, oily-eyed and unblinking, and I wondered vaguely if she had any pulse … .

  I swiftly reviewed the testimony of the bartender concerning Barney’s drinking and the guns and all the rest; the revealing wolf designation he had pinned on Barney; the unsought sympathy he had bestowed on the Manions; the gift of cigarettes and the expression of regret over the broken mirror and bottle of “white-vest” bourbon. “Surely this crafty shifty little man must have known when he did and said these things that they would come back to haunt him if he had not really meant them.”

  My argument was verging on a sensitive area and for Mary Pilant’s sake I had to try to cover it obliquely. “And who was it that dragged whatever truth of these things we finally got out of this witness? Not our Mr. Dancer, certainly. You will recall how hostile this bartender was when I first cross-examined him. At first he would have nothing unusual with Barney, either in his drinking or otherwise. The Thunder Bay Inn was the setting for a summer idyl.”

  I glanced back at the frowning bartender and then returned to the jury. “I wonder why the witness changed? Could it have had something to do with Barney’s estate or his insurance? Or was someone growing afraid of perjury?” I paused. “In any case, when I got him back again on the stand something certainly had changed, for whatever reason. I then dragged out of him over Mr. Dancer’s trip-hammer objections that things had been so normal, indeed, that Barney was still gulping his double shots as hungrily as ever; that his behavior was still normally queer; that things were so placidly normal and fine, in fact, that some of his arsenal of guns had to be locked up while at least two others were unaccounted for. Yes, that’s how really normal things were around that seething hotel and bar.” I paused. “And isn’t that what the bartender really meant when he told Mrs. Manion it was too bad they had come to Thunder Bay when they did? Weren’t the Manions indeed like two lost characters who had wandered unwittingly onto the stage of some dark Greek drama they knew not of?”

  I turned toward the clock; my time was rapidly running out. “We now come to our defense of insanity, to the battle of the psychiatrists. Doubtless Mr. Dancer will call our young doctor a charlatan and a faker for failing to use the impressive-sounding tests that he, Dancer, had so glibly learned by heart from the People’s doctor. In this connection I ask you why, if this young man were no good at his work—why would this able and poised young doctor be put in charge of all this modern psychiatric equipment by the U.S. Army itself?”

  The jumbled mosaic of evidence pointing toward insanity had to be reviewed, and I swiftly reviewed it, along with the testimony of young Doctor Smith. “Now Dr. Smith has told you of his intensive examination of the Lieutenant upon which he based his opinion,” I went on. “This is flatly opposed by the testimony of Dr. Gregory. There is no way to reconcile their opinions—one of these men is dead wrong.” I paused. “If the stakes here were not so high I might be tempted charitably to overlook Dr. Gregory’s testimony and pass it by. This poor man in one breath tells us our Doctor’s tests were no good, that he would have given a whole flock of others. Then in the next breath he dares to pass a professional opinion on this man’s sanity without any tests whatever! Then in his final breath, when he was cornered he reluctantly admits, over a final barrage of Mr. Dancer’s protective objections, that this is not normal or recognized psychiatric procedure.”

  I turned and looked at Dr. Gregory. “This is the same diplomate who made no attempt to examine the Lieutenant although he has been here for days. I wonder whether he meant by his testimony that no man could ever go off his rocker when such a thing had happened to his wife? He does not tell us. If he meant that none could, then I wonder when and under what circumstances any man could ever be expected to lose his mind from sudden emotional or psychic shock? If the Doctor instead meant that some men might go insane over such a shocking event, but not this man, then I wonder what psychiatric basis of observation or examination he used to arrive at that conclusion? He does not tell us. And you observed how our four-day expert in the argot of psychiatry from Lansing, Mr. Dancer, couldn’t hustle the poor man off the stand fast enough when I had done examining him.

  “If the doctor meant that he believed the Lieutenant was sane that night because he, the doctor, didn’t believe his wife had been raped, then, along with our two die-hard prosecutors, he is possibly the lone holdout in this room on that score. In any case I believe the Judge will tell you that it is not what actually happened that is the guiding test in these insanity cases, but what the insanity victim reasonably believed had happened. And this is true both psychiatrically and legally. People unfortunately go insane every day over mere figments of their imagination. Does Dr. Gregory mean that men must never go insane when faced with the real McCoy?”

  I paused and shook my head. “There is something sad about this performance we have seen here. If a regular doctor had done a thing like this he would be called a quack, a lawyer a shyster. When a man will blithely pervert and make a mockery out of a whole profession, one to which he has presumably dedicated his life, then the lie
takes on large dimensions of sorrow and wonder.” I pounded the mahogany jury rail so hard with my fist that I wondered vaguely if I would ever again be able to cast a fly. “And a lie of that kind is all the more vicious and reckless and cynical because we ordinary mortals lack the training to appraise and nail it.” I shook my head. “It makes one reflect that a man must doubtless first be a good man before he can be a good psychiatrist; that if he is a timid or gutless or cynical or arrogant man, then—when the squeeze is on, the chips are down—that is the kind of professional man he will be.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” I pressed on, “I take no pleasure in having to be so harsh on this doctor. His testimony would be laughable if the stakes weren’t so high and the attempted use to be made of his testimony so ruthless and cynically bold. But when any man dares to come into court and tinker with the destiny of a man charged with first degree murder, then he is treating us as fools and he warrants our scathing censure and scorn.”

  I paused and mopped my brow. Both my temperature and voice were rising and I turned and again pointed at Claude Dancer. “But however we may censure this poor doctor, it is the man who master-minded his coming here to testify on such a pitifully inadequate professional basis who deserves the full blast of our contempt. Was poor Doctor Gregory sacrificed here on the altar of the insatiable ambition of someone in this room to hang up still another legal scalp? To someone for whom law and justice and freedom is merely a cynical game? Is poor Lieutenant Manion again to be caught in the vise of some squalid desire of some ambitious lawyer or doctor to get a better job? Did Mr. Dancer need the scalp of a veteran of two wars to round out his growing collection? And is this jury going to give it to him?”

  I glanced back at the clock. “So much for Wechsler-Bellevue.”

  I rested my notes on the court stenographer’s table and moved empty-handed close to the jury rail. “We come now to the astounding testimony of our own domestic duke—to one Duane Miller, ex-convict, confessed arsonist, eager stool pigeon, last-minute key witness for the People in this murder trial. Ladies and gentlemen, I scarcely know what to say to you. There is no use denying or evading the fact that the testimony of this bombshell witness can blast our case wide open if you believe this man.”

  I turned and gulped some more water. “Consider the timing here. Isn’t it strange that the People waited over a day to ask this man what he had on the Lieutenant? Remember, he was the man in the cell nearest our man. If the People sought only the truth why didn’t they ask him first? Wouldn’t he be the most likely initial candidate for questioning? By questioning all the other prisoners first were the People trying subtly to give this witness time to learn what was cooking and thus make up a whopping good story when his summons to Parnassus came? But no, they saved him for the last, they let this convicted man alone to soak in the growing jail-gossip knowledge that they were searching, seeking, looking for bad news, any bad news, to use against the Lieutenant.”

  I shook my head. “And, Lord, how beautifully the plan worked; how well their man came across—even to adding ‘Buster’.—this lost sheep of society with his dreary record of crime that speaks so eloquently of a warped personality; this convicted perjurer, this frightened trapped creature crouching in his cell awaiting sentence, wondering what there might be in it for him; this driven pliant soul who even lied about the number of times he was in prison and then told us he ‘flubbed’ when I trapped him at it. Do you think that this man would hesitate an instant to trade the truth even for a broken cigarette, especially if he thought it might remotely help save his own hide?”

  I shook my head wearily. “I cannot tell you precisely when this trial degenerated from a search for truth into an inquisition.” I again raised my fist and, remembering, lowered it. “But I can tell you that degenerate it did—and that this marks the lowest descent of all. All of us are now gliding helplessly downward, mired and sinking in the bottomless ooze and slime of the Big Lie.”

  I turned and looked at the Lieutenant, who had bowed his head. “I shall not dwell on the inherent improbability that Lieutenant Manion would even pass the time of day with such a character, much less have risked confiding his very future to this cunning man by telling him what he says he said.” I widened my arms. “No, people, it is your baby. You’ve got to grapple alone with this one.”

  Swiftly consulting my notes, I raced on: “Let us dwell briefly upon Lieutenant Manion’s wife before Mr. Dancer gets lovingly to paw her. There may be those among you who may question the wisdom or propriety of her conduct that night. If any such there be I ask only that you consider this: here was a healthy, vivacious woman cooped up in a strange logging and resort village among strangers; she is an Army wife, used to being alone, shipped around, amusing herself, making do, living much among men—living a sort of easy and informal gypsy life, if you will. Can you fairly or char itably judge her by the prim standards of the ordinary sheltered housewife and mother?

  “In any event I remind you that there is not the slightest hint of immorality or looseness on her part, no shred of evidence that she was more than a normally friendly woman duly appreciative of the deceased’s false concern for her safety. There is no breath of proof that she knew she was trafficking with a roaring wolf.” I wagged my finger at the jury. “Surely if the lady went out with the great Barney just to romance with him, as the People have tried so hard to insinuate, then why on earth did he have to treat her as he did? Why, why, why? When has it become necessary for wolves to beat up and maul and nearly kill a willing victim?

  “But if you still have any doubts about her conduct or her story, I ask you to remember that it is Lieutenant Manion who is on trial here for murder and not his wife; that it is what he believed that counts; that it is how his mind reacted; finally that it is his freedom and future that is at stake.”

  I glanced at the clock and saw that my time was running out. “I haven’t time to go over the testimony of the little doctor who tried to take the smear in the jail. I say only this: If he didn’t take the smear right even Mayo Brothers couldn’t have worked the slides. Or if he did take the smears right they still wouldn’t show if the person who worked them up wasn’t a competent technician.”

  I paused and again glanced at the clock. “We’ve had everything happen in this trial but an old-fashioned balloon ascension. We’ve even had a trained-dog act. I refer of course to the little dog Rover and his flashlight. Mr. Dancer will doubtless try to tell you that bringing the dog in court was a corny side show, nothing but sly defense tactics calculated to tug at your heartstrings, an act of cheap showmanship. But I wonder if little Rover could have fit in this courtroom if we hadn’t produced him here? Do you think for a moment Mr. Dancer would not then have invested little Rover with the temper of a crocodile, the fangs of a spring-tooth harrow, the proportions of a buffalo? Yes, Rover was an important defense witness on at least two grounds bearing on Mrs. Manion’s story of the rape: one, that he was a friendly little animal who likely would not and obviously could not have prevented this rape; two, that he could indeed have shown his frantic mistress through the trailer-park stile with his flashlight.

  “Both his friendliness and training were well demonstrated here in court. You saw him pattering around with his little tail wagging, running here and there as proud as Punch.” I paused and smiled. “But Rover must learn to be more discerning of those who are friends or enemies of his master and mistress. Surely all of you saw him try to leap into the lap of the benevolent Attorney General from Lansing.”

  The Judge tapped his gavel lightly and spoke quietly as I turned to him. “Time runs out, Mr. Biegler,” he said. “About three minutes more.” I nodded my thanks and quickly turned back to the jury.

  “There are things in this case we will never know,” I raced on, “things which seem to have nothing to do with the Manions, and I have time but to suggest a few. Why was Barney drinking so hard? Why was it necessary to lock up his guns? Why did he apply for more life insurance a few wee
ks before that terrible evening? Was he tired of life? Was the man suffering from some progressive disease of the body or mind? Was he somehow maddened and driven by the idea that he was no longer top dog of Thunder Bay? Was he gnawed with jealousy over someone? Was he trying to pay back the Army for some real or imagined hurt?” I paused. “Finally, ask yourselves why—why did this man single out and rape and degrade and nearly kill the wife of the sort of man he should have had every reason to expect would retaliate swiftly? Would it not take a whole panel of psychiatrists to have sifted the mind of that driven man? I paused thoughtfully and lowered my voice.”It is almost as though he sought death, much as a burning meteor soars across the sky, searing and destroying all in its path.

  “Consider soberly if you will the enormous sense of betrayal that must have afflicted Lieutenant Manion that night. Why do I speak of betrayal? Not only had he the knowledge that his wife had been raped and foully abused—but the almost as bitter knowledge that all this was done by a civilian, by one of those lucky ones for whom the Lieutenant had risked his life in two wars so that Barney might continue to drink double shots and blithely play wolf and shoot up empty whisky bottles. I do not try to wave the flag or enfold my man in patriotic bunting. These are brutal facts. A sleek, whisky-addled, wolfish civilian betrays the Lieutenant and his wife the first chance he gets. Wasn’t that alone enough to make the mind reel? Wouldn’t any man in the Lieutenant’s place feel the very hiss of mankind against him? Yet Mr. Dancer and his diplomate ask you to scoff at the idea that such a paltry incident should have bothered the man at all.”

  There remained something more to be said about Claude Dancer; I could not in good conscience take leave of him this way. “If I have been harsh on Mr. Dancer then all I can say is that he has asked for it.” I paused. “Rarely if ever have I met an opponent in the courtroom who possessed larger endowments and more formidable talents as a trial lawyer.” I shook my head. “Never have I collided with one who by his sly deceits and shabby little tricks has so gratuitously demeaned and tarnished those splendid gifts.” I lowered my voice. “Heaven help us, none of us is infallible; all of us are vulnerable, weak, partisan, and childishly avid for victory. But if this earnest man would only put away his courtroom toys and bring a little more humanity and heart to his endeavors I believe that for him the sky will be the limit—if sky indeed is what he seeks.